Chapter 23

One day only had passed since Anne's conversation with Mrs Smith;
but a keener interest had succeeded, and she was now so little touched
by Mr Elliot's conduct, except by its effects in one quarter,
that it became a matter of course the next morning, still to defer
her explanatory visit in Rivers Street. She had promised to be
with the Musgroves from breakfast to dinner. Her faith was plighted,
and Mr Elliot's character, like the Sultaness Scheherazade's head,d
must live another day.

She could not keep her appointment punctually, however;
the weather was unfavourable, and she had grieved over the rain
on her friends' account, and felt it very much on her own,
before she was able to attempt the walk. When she reached the White Hart,
and made her way to the proper apartment, she found herself
neither arriving quite in time, nor the first to arrive.
The party before her were, Mrs Musgrove, talking to Mrs Croft,
and Captain Harville to Captain Wentworth; and she immediately heard
that Mary and Henrietta, too impatient to wait, had gone out the moment
it had cleared, but would be back again soon, and that the strictest
injunctions had been left with Mrs Musgrove to keep her there
till they returned. She had only to submit, sit down,
be outwardly composed, and feel herself plunged at once
in all the agitations which she had merely laid her accountw of
tasting a little before the morning closed. There was no delay,
no waste of time. She was deep in the happiness of such misery,
or the misery of such happiness, instantly. Two minutes after
her entering the room, Captain Wentworth said--

"We will write the letter we were talking of, Harville, now,
if you will give me materials."

Materials were at hand, on a separate table; he went to it,
and nearly turning his back to them all, was engrossed by writing.

Mrs Musgrove was giving Mrs Croft the history of her eldest
daughter's engagement, and just in that inconvenient tone of voice
which was perfectly audible while it pretended to be a whisper.
Anne felt that she did not belong to the conversation, and yet,
as Captain Harville seemed thoughtful and not disposed to talk,
she could not avoid hearing many undesirable particulars; such as,
"how Mr Musgrove and my brother Hayter had met again and again
to talk it over; what my brother Hayter had said one day,
and what Mr Musgrove had proposed the next, and what had occurred
to my sister Hayter, and what the young people had wished, and what
I said at first I never could consent to, but was afterwards persuaded
to think might do very well," and a great deal in the same style
of open-hearted communication: minutiae which, even with every advantage
of taste and delicacy, which good Mrs Musgrove could not give,
could be properly interesting only to the principals. Mrs Croft
was attending with great good-humour, and whenever she spoke at all,
it was very sensibly. Anne hoped the gentlemen might each be
too much self-occupied to hear.

"And so, ma'am, all these thingd considered," said Mrs Musgrove,
in her powerful whisper, "though we could have wished it different,
yet, altogether, we did not think it fair to stand out any longer,
for Charles Hayter was quite wild about it, and Henrietta was
pretty near as bad; and so we thought they had better marry at once,
and make the best of it, as many others have done before them.
At any rate, said I, it will be better than a long engagement."

"That is precisely what I was going to observe," cried Mrs Croft.
"I would rather have young people settle on a small income at once,
and have to struggle with a few difficulties together, than be
involved in a long engagement. I always think that no mutual--"

"Oh! dear Mrs Croft," cried Mrs Musgrove, unable to let her
finish her speech, "there is nothing I so abominate for young people
as a long engagement. It is what I always protested against
for my children. It is all very well, I used to say, for young people
to be engaged, if there is a certainty of their being able to marry
in six months, or even in twelve; but a long engagement--"

The story of Scheherazade comes From The Arabian Nights, a work that enthralled countless English children, some of whom, like Austen, went on to become major novelists. Story-telling forms a leitmotif in Persuasion, and this allusion sets the stage for an important statement by Austen a few sentences later.…